


I’ll see you when I get there (When September Ends)

by moonythejedi394



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 2000s, Afterlife, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bucky Barnes Dies, Bucky Barnes Feels, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Depression, Don't copy to another site, Drunkenness, Green Day References, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, I Made Myself Cry, Lung Cancer, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rehabilitation, Sad Ending, Steve Rogers Dies, Steve Rogers Feels, Suicide, Talking To Dead People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 07:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18406181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonythejedi394/pseuds/moonythejedi394
Summary: "Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends"Steve has terminal cancer. Bucky doesn't take it well.





	I’ll see you when I get there (When September Ends)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goodmanperfectsoldier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmanperfectsoldier/gifts).



> _DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT. READ IF YOU WANT TO CRY. THIS IS NOT A HAPPY CUP._
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> _a[thread](https://twitter.com/softestbuck/status/1115439714465714176) was launched by [softestbuck](https://twitter.com/softestbuck) and i got their permission to write the angst they did not want to read in this world. if you're unsure, check the thread for context. i did make myself cry, seriously. oh boy._

#  **_I’ll see you when I get there (When September Ends)_ **

 

High school graduation was the last time Bucky had been truly happy.

 

His mom kept a picture of him and Steve in their caps and gowns holding up their diplomas for the camera on the mantelpiece; it was right next to his and Steve’s wedding portrait. You’d think the wedding portrait would be happier than graduation, except for one really important detail.

 

Bucky and Steve graduated in June of 2009; they celebrated by going to a Green Day concert the night before though they both stayed up way too late because of it, they were still excited to graduate. Steve almost couldn’t; he’d missed a lot of school that year because of a recurring case of bronchitis.

 

Except it wasn’t bronchitis. A week after they graduated, Steve collapsed because of an asthma attack. He’d started coughing and spat out blood. They’d been at Prospect Park walking their neighbor’s dog and Bucky accidentally left the dog tied to a bench to haul ass and piggyback his boyfriend to the nearest ER. He didn’t have a cellphone, neither did Steve, and he hadn't thought of asking anyone in the park to call 911. He just made Steve climb on his back and started running.

 

At the ER, someone thought to call Steve’s mom. It wasn’t Bucky. He got there, said “My friend had an asthma attack and started coughing up blood” and before Bucky could ask to go back with him, a couple of nurses loaded Steve onto a gurney and whisked him away. Bucky was left in the waiting room to stew in his panic. Mrs. Rogers showed up half an hour later and a doctor called her back right away, so Bucky followed her. The hospital had hooked Steve up to a breathing machine and revived him. Bucky hadn't even realized that Steve had passed out at any point.

 

The doctor had questions. Mrs. Rogers answered while Bucky stared in growing shock. Had he coughed up blood before? No. How long had he had asthma? Since he was five. How long had he had a cough? The past year. Had he had chest pain? Yes. Had he lost weight because of a loss of appetite? Yes. Had he had chronic headaches? Yes. Had he had swollen lymph nodes? Yes, but she thought that it was bronchitis. Had his voice been frequently hoarse? Yes, but she thought it was bronchitis.

 

The doctor checked things off a list, sighed, and said, “Well, we’re gonna do some tests, but it looks like lung cancer.” Steve had fluid in his chest that the hospital drained off and tested, then they did a CT scan, and after all of that, Steve had been in the hospital for two weeks. Bucky apologized to the neighbor whose dog he’d left in the park and in the same sentence told them to go fuck themselves because he’d had bigger issues and he spent all of those two weeks at Steve’s bedside wherever possible. The nurses didn’t let him stay overnight, even though Mrs. Rogers tried to sign off on letting him, since she worked the night shift at an ER on the other side of Brooklyn. He still couldn’t. Steve was left alone.

 

It was lung cancer. The doctor passive-aggressively called Mrs. Rogers an idiot because she’d assumed that he was just having chronic bronchitis, even though Steve had had chronic bronchitis his whole childhood and it had been their family doctor that had written off his cough and chest pain and headaches and wheeziness as bronchitis. He gave the speech of “We’ll do everything we can, go at it aggressively, and keep a positive outlook,” except Steve was already in stage 3. The cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and his left lung was more cancer than not.

 

Bucky and Steve had been dating since Steve was fifteen and Bucky’d been sixteen. They hadn't been out at school and the only people that really knew were their parents and Steve’s World of Warcraft pals. Steve turned 18 that year, a week after starting chemo, and a week after, he was officially in stage 4.

 

Bucky tried to keep Steve’s spirits up. He really did. Everything that was happening left his Stevie really depressed and he didn’t have a lot of hope for his situation. Chemo wasn’t working and by August, he had to carry around oxygen tanks everywhere. He weighed 90 pounds and was too physically weak to pick up the cat. When he lost his eyebrows, he tried to break up with Bucky.

 

“You shouldn’t be stuck with someone who’s gonna be dead by the end of the year,” Steve insisted.

 

“I’ll do you one better,” Bucky answered stubbornly. “Fucking marry me, punk.”

 

Steve, bald head covered by an American Idiot T-shirt that Bucky had ripped up into a bandana for him, just looked at him for a long time. “No,” he said eventually.

 

Bucky grabbed his frail hands and held onto them. “Yes,” he argued.

 

“Where the fuck are we even gonna get married?” Steve demanded.

 

“Massachusetts,” Bucky fired back. “Easy.”

 

Steve laughed in his face. Bucky called in Mrs. Rogers and asked if they could borrow her car to go on a road trip. She asked why and Steve said, in a sarcastic tone, “Bucky thinks we can get married in Massachusetts.” Mrs. Rogers looked at them, at Steve, at Bucky, and said, “I’ll drive you.”

 

So he and Steve got married in Boston. They had to stay there for 60 days to qualify, but Boston had a pretty good cancer center anyway and Steve’s doctor thought it was a good idea he get treated there. Bucky’s mom rented them tuxedos and Steve had to stay in a wheelchair because he was too weak to stand, but they got married. October 1st, 2009. They didn’t have a honeymoon and their wedding night was spent in Steve’s room at the Cancer Center at Boston Medical.

 

“You deserve better,” Steve tried to say.

 

“Shut the fuck up and kiss your husband,” Bucky told him.

 

Steve still got worse. He lost more weight. He got weaker. The following April, they thought for a brief, glorious moment that maybe the cancer cells were finally responding to treatment and then they spread to his liver. The doctors removed the cancerous cells in his liver the second they appeared, but more appeared after that and his liver started shutting down. Steve’s skin started to appear jaundiced, he was constantly exhausted, and in June, the doctors suggested hospice care.

 

Bucky had to be removed from the hospital after that because he started screaming at all of them and they only let him back in because Mrs. Rogers threatened to sue if they didn’t let Steve see his husband.

 

“I told you getting married was a good idea,” Bucky said to Steve after that.

 

“Sure,” Steve mumbled back.

 

He was put on an all-liquid diet. They put him on the waiting list for a liver transplant and Steve joked that Bucky would’ve probably tried to give his up if they would’ve let him. He was right. Bucky had already offered.

 

Steve’s liver was shutting down and he could no longer get out of bed at all because he had to be kept on breathing support 24/7. Bucky hadn't started college, he only had a job because Steve threatened to divorce him if he didn’t get off his ass and quit spending his every waking hour in the hospital, and Mrs. Rogers was at risk of losing her job. A day or so before Steve’s birthday, she admitted to Bucky that she’d accumulated more debt because of Steve’s hospital bills than both her student loans and her dead husband’s. They’d thought Steve had been asleep. He hadn't.

 

Steve agreed to hospice care while Bucky was in the bathroom the next day. He got back to find the nurses already getting ready to move him out of the ward. Bucky had been ready to kill himself Steve for giving up, but Steve just gave him sad eyes and asked him to let him go.

 

Bucky had broke down crying then, actually the first time he’d cried since Steve collapsed in the park after graduation. Steve had cried with him and finally admitted how afraid he was of dying. Bucky tried to say that he wouldn’t, that there’d be a miracle.

 

They buried Steve in September. Bucky had been asleep in Steve’s room one night and woke up to him coughing. He’d gotten up to give him water, poured the glass, and turned back to the bed as Steve turned hazy eyes on him. He’d rasped something, Bucky had dropped the glass, and Steve’s life-support flatlined.

 

Mrs. Rogers authorized an autopsy. The coroner found asbestos in his lungs. It was a better explanation than the vague theory of second-hand smoke. After the funeral, Bucky stole fifty dollars from his mom to buy a fake ID and checked himself into a bar, where he drank a bottle and a half of some cheap vodka and had to start a tab. He woke up back in the graveyard the next day, lying covered in dew next to Steve’s headstone. He’d cried more than he’d drunk the night before, got up, and stumbled into work hungover and unshowered and unshaved. He worked at a grocery store, but not even the cheap atmosphere of the store saved his ass that day, his manager sent him home with a warning. They were back in New York at that point and his and Steve’s marriage license wasn’t valid. He’d had to switch shifts with a co-worker to even make Steve’s funeral.

 

Bucky ended up moving in with Mrs. Rogers. He took Steve’s room and spent a lot of time talking to Steve’s WoW friends. A few months after the funeral, he found Steve’s password and started playing the game for him. Steve’s party members – a couple of guys, Tony and Bruce, and a girl called Peggy – taught him how to play, but Bucky still sucked. A lot of people that didn’t really know what had happened sent him messages asking why he was playing like a newb lately. Bucky ignored half, and told the other half that the person they knew was dead and it was his partner playing like a newb because he was a newb. Most of them gave their condolences. Bucky made the mistake of letting his gender out there to the first handful and a lot of them called him a faggot; that or they were calling Steve a faggot. Or both.

 

Bucky kept drinking, however. He took out a personal loan and paid off his various bar tabs and renewed Steve’s WoW account for the year. The grocery store fired him for showing up drunk/hungover too many times after his 21st birthday and Bucky decided to turn what he loved into a career and learned how to tend bar. Benefits included whatever liquor he could sneak without being noticed and an employee discount. Cons included having to hear more people than he’d anticipated sharing their cancer-related woes and not being brave enough to sympathize with them, considering the state of New York filed Steve’s death certificate as just _Steven G. Rogers_ and left off the hyphen Barnes.

 

Mrs. Rogers told Bucky that she’d cover rehab for him when he gave himself alcohol poisoning in honor of his 22nd birthday. Well, what she said was:

 

“Either you dry out or I’ll have to kick you out.”

 

Bucky agreed to rehab. He checked in for a month and then a day in, checked himself out. Not because he couldn’t take the withdrawal symptoms, no, because neither he nor Mrs. Rogers had noticed that the rehab center was a Christian one and when Bucky said that the catalyst of his drinking problem had been his husband’s death, the center had suggested that he repent of his sins and try to move past his homosexual past. Mrs. Rogers, fortunately, hadn't paid for all of it yet and she agreed that it had been fair that he left and said she’d find him a different one. While she was looking, Bucky went back to drinking.

 

Bucky’s parents weren’t as understanding. At least, his dad wasn’t. Bucky’s grandfather had been an alcoholic and Bucky had grown up with his dad talking about how liquor had ruined Grandpa’s life and marriage and turned his childhood into a nightmare. Bucky had managed to hide it from them so far, but the alcohol poisoning hadn't slipped past them. His dad told him not to talk to them again until he’d sorted his shit out.

 

“Fuck you, too, then,” Bucky told him. “Have a nice fucking life.”

 

His little sisters weren’t allowed to talk to him. That hit Bucky harder than he’d thought it would. Before, he’d picked them up after school every Monday, taken Becca to karate and Benny to Girl Scouts and for ice cream after. Mondays had, until then, been the only day that Bucky managed not to drink. After that, Mondays were fair game.

 

Mrs. Rogers threatened to kick him out again in June if he didn’t try rehab again. Bucky told her she was a terrible mother and should’ve realized there was more wrong with Steve before he hit stage 3. She did kick him out and even refused to talk to him after that.

 

Bucky was alone, didn’t have anywhere to live, but his new boss, Clint Barton, understood his plight. He let Bucky crash on his couch and offered to let him tag along to AA a few times a week. Bucky turned him down each time.

 

“You can’t keep living like this,” Clint finally told him near Christmas.

 

“That’s the idea,” Bucky admitted.

 

Clint looked at him for a long time, then got up and walked away. Bucky half expected to get kicked out again. Instead, Clint didn’t say a word to him, but when Bucky woke up with his usual hangover the next day, there was a stranger sitting by the couch with him.

 

“My name’s Sam,” the dude introduced himself, “I’m a volunteer counselor at the local VA, I’m friends with Clint. He’s kinda worried about you.”

 

“Could I get a shower before you start preaching mental health at me?” Bucky asked him.

 

“Sure,” Sam agreed pretty easily.

 

Very easily, Bucky realized, because Sam (or Clint) had already taken all the razors out of the bathroom.

 

“I needed to shave,” Bucky said without any context to Sam when he got out.

 

“Why don’t we chat first?” Sam asked.

 

Bucky turned around and put on his shoes. “Talk if you want, I got places to be.”

 

Sam, unfortunately, followed him. Bucky bought a six-pack of beer at his local liquor store, flowers at the bodega, and just headed to the cemetery. He thought Sam might take pity on him and leave him alone if he was drinking by his illegally wedded late husband’s grave. This plan did not work.

 

“A friend of yours?” Sam asked as Bucky swapped the dead flowers for fresh ones at Steve’s headstone.

 

Bucky just pointed at the epitaph. “Beloved son and husband,” he recited, then up, at the fucking hyphen Barnes that he fought the cemetery tooth and nail to get along with the beloved husband bit. “You know my name, pal?”

 

“Oh,” Sam said.

 

“Oh,” Bucky repeated with venom.

 

He sat his ass down on the grass, cracked open his first beer, and started his weekly ritual of proving to Steve that he could have liver failure, too.

 

“He was young,” Sam said.

 

Bucky just nodded.

 

“Nineteen?” Sam asked.

 

“Nineteen years, two months, three days,” Bucky answered. “He had cancer.”

 

“Damn,” Sam said.

 

Sam dropped down next to him. “How long had you been married?”

 

“Eleven months and six days,” Bucky said.

 

“Damn,” Sam repeated.

 

Bucky just nodded and took another swig of his beer.

 

“You ever heard Mary Elizabeth Frye?” Sam said abruptly.

 

“No,” Bucky muttered.

 

“‘Do not stand at my grave and weep?’” Sam added.

 

Bucky just looked at him. Sam cleared his throat and looked ahead.

 

“‘Do not stand at my grave and weep,’” he repeated. “‘I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain.’”

 

“I get your point,” Bucky interrupted coldly.

 

“I don’t mean to be insensitive,” Sam said, turning his way again. “I lost my partner about five years ago.”

 

Bucky jerked his gaze onto Sam and just looked at him critically. Sam seemed to realize what he said.

 

“Not your kind of partner,” he said, “Air Force. He was my partner in the Air Force.”

 

Bucky just grunted and looked away.

 

“He died on my watch,” Sam continued. “I left the Air Force and ended up where you are now.”

 

Bucky let out a snort. “Pal,” he cut him off again, “there’s a huge fucking difference from losing your army buddy and losing your husband, okay?”

 

Sam nodded. “You’re right,” he agreed. “But you and me, we’ve both lost people that were important to us –”

 

“Do you mind?” Bucky interrupted a third time. “I’m visiting my husband’s grave. I want to be alone.”

 

Sam let out a heavy exhale. He nodded and got up.

 

“I’ll catch you later,” he said. “See you, Buck.”

 

Bucky didn’t watch him leave. He finished his first beer, stuck it back its slot, and started on his second.

 

“You’d be pissed,” he said quietly to Steve’s grave. “I’m being an asshole.”

 

Steve would’ve told him not to stand at his grave and weep, probably. Bucky doesn’t do a lot of crying anymore, anyway. He can stay numb enough not to bawl his eyes out if he can blow a solid .10 in the mornings before his first drink.

 

Steve would tell him he was being an asshole. He would tell him that Sarah had been damn right to tell him to sober up, that his dad couldn’t even drink booze himself because it reminded him too much of Grandpa, and that everyone was just trying to help him. Bucky would fucking love it if Steve could tell him all of those things. He’d gladly quit cold turkey if Steve could start talking again.

 

Bucky got arrested the next week. He just wakes up in a jail cell with no idea how he got there and an unamused custody sergeant flipping through his newspaper.

 

“What’s the date?” Bucky called out despite his raging headache.

 

The sergeant checked the top of the paper. “July 24th,” he replied. “You need to know the year, too, pal?”

 

“I know the fuckin’ year,” Bucky grumbled, rubbing at his eyes. “What am I in for?”

 

“Disorderly conduct,” the cop answered. “Barely escaped getting done for assault, though.”

 

Bucky gawked. “The fuck?”

 

“You broke a guy’s jaw ‘cause he refused to put out his cigarette,” Cop answered.

 

Bucky fell back onto his bench, staring blankly at the ceiling. Steve might’ve been proud of that one.

 

Bucky was released that afternoon, though. It was his first arrest, at least. As he was being processed, Bucky noticed the headlines for the day.

 

_Same-Sex Marriage Licenses Legalized Under Marriage Equality Act._

 

“Try to stay sober, buddy,” the duty officer told Bucky. “You’re free to go now.”

 

Bucky sat there for a second longer, just looking at the paper.

 

“Barnes?” the officer prompted.

 

Bucky threw the paper down. “Rogers-Barnes,” he corrected angrily, getting up. “State can’t fucking complain about that anymore.”

 

Bucky walked out. He headed straight back to the cemetery.

 

“Didn’t bring you new flowers,” he apologized to Steve’s headstone, but he knelt down and fluffed up the flowers he’d left last time. “You heard the news, baby? Could’a gotten married in Brooklyn if – If…”

 

Bucky couldn’t finish. He fell onto his ass, his vision getting wobbly as his eyes filled with tears, and he just stared at Steve’s headstone. He choked on a sob, covered his face, and broke down.

 

Clint found him there, somehow. He sat down next to Bucky, put an arm around him, and just rubbed his shoulders. Bucky couldn’t find it in him to care that he’d been found sobbing.

 

“He knows,” Clint said quietly. “He knows, pal.”

 

Bucky couldn’t say that Steve did.

 

Clint kept offering to let him join AA. Bucky kept saying no. Around the start of August, Clint reluctantly fired him.

 

“I can’t ethically keep you on here,” he said. “I can give you a job as a handyman in my building, but, buddy, you gotta get away from the booze.”

 

Bucky took the pity job. It meant he could move off Clint’s couch, at least, since being the building handyman gave him a tiny one-bedroom on the first floor. He didn’t know a damn thing about plumbing or electricity, but apparently, Clint could take care of that himself. Bucky just had to keep the doors oiled and change the lightbulbs. After a couple of weeks, Clint told him that he had to start going to AA if he wanted to stay, however.

 

Bucky left. He got a job at a bar across town, an overpriced club called Hydra. He didn’t have a place to live, but that wasn’t so big of a deal. He just bought a waterproof sleeping bag and put himself to bed next to Steve’s grave.

 

“Pal, you can’t sleep here,” the night-guard told him.

 

“‘S my husband,” Bucky slurred. “An’ ‘s my plot, too, I alre’ paid for it.”

 

“Well, you gotta die first,” the guard said emotionlessly. “Then you can sleep here. Pack it up.”

 

Bucky refused. The cops came. He slept in a jail cell again. They didn’t even let him use his sleeping bag. He tried to go back to visit Steve’s grave again a few days after, and while he was there, a guard came up to him.

 

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said. “Management has banned you.”

 

“They can’t fucking ban me!” Bucky shouted.

 

“If you don’t leave, I’ll be forced to call the police,” the guard replied callously.

 

“Let me fucking talk to your management!” Bucky demanded.

 

“You’ve been banned,” management told him, twice as callous. “You’re a disturbance to other visitors and we have a strict no-alcohol on the premises policy that you’ve been violating for the past two years.”

 

“It’s my husband’s grave!” Bucky yelled.

 

“You weren’t legally married,” management said. “Please leave or we’ll call the police.”

 

Bucky left. He would move Steve to a different cemetery if he could, but he couldn’t afford it. He didn’t have anywhere to live, he had a mountain of credit card debt all labeled alcohol, and Hydra had a stricter policy about drinking on the job than Clint’s bar had done.

 

The night-guard said he could sleep by Steve’s grave if he was dead, though.

 

Bucky hadn't done anything stupid, but he woke up the day after the anniversary of Steve’s death in a hospital and his mom was there. She’d been crying, clearly. He was barely awake before she started talking.

 

“You’ve destroyed your liver,” she said, in a surprisingly calm voice. “If you don’t fix your problem right away, there won’t be any reversing the damage.”

 

Bucky shut his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

 

“Do you hear me, James Barnes!” his mom suddenly shouted.

 

“Rogers-Barnes,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

 

“You are ruining your life!” his mom screamed. “Steve wouldn’t want this!”

 

“Don’t fucking talk to me about what Steve would want!” Bucky screamed back at her, sitting up even though it made his head spin. “He’s fucking dead and he can’t fucking know what I’m doing to my fucking liver!”

 

His mom’s chin trembled. She got up and rushed out of the room, but Bucky heard her start to cry as she left. He fell back against his pillow and just stared at the ceiling.

 

Eventually, a doctor came in. He introduced himself as Abraham Erskine and didn’t offer to shake Bucky’s hand.

 

“You have the fastest case of alcoholic liver disease I’ve ever seen,” Dr. Erskine began. “Your mother said you’ve been drinking for about two years now?”

 

Bucky just grunted.

 

“Your liver looks like you’ve been drinking for twice as long,” Erskine added. “I can’t stress how vital it is that you work on reversing your problem. Much more of this, your liver will start shutting down. Do you know what happens when the liver can’t do its job?”

 

“I do, actually,” Bucky said. “Jaundice, ascites, fluid-build up. Stuff.”

 

“You’re versed,” Erskine agreed. “Your mother tried to have you committed to rehab, but you’re of age so you have to go willingly.”

 

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Bucky offered with a sarcastic smile.

 

Bucky was fired in October for stealing merchandise. Bucky didn’t think a few bottles of whiskey really mattered, but whatever. He was unemployed for a while, but he’d already been homeless, so he didn’t have much farther to go on his spiral down life’s drain. He thought about really stealing booze, but couldn’t face shoplifting when it came down to it. He thought about what Steve would say and figured he’d ruined his life enough without getting locked up for lifting a bottle of Jack Daniels.

 

When it started snowing, Bucky caved. He went back home and asked his mom if he could move back in. His mom teared up just looking at him, then told him to come in and get a shower. She called his dad while Bucky was in the bathroom and when he came home, he said Bucky had to go to rehab if he wanted to stay there.

 

“I don’t want to see you ruin your life the way my pa did, son,” his dad admitted.

 

“Steve wouldn’t want this for you,” his mom told him again.

 

Bucky sniffled and rubbed at his eyes and nodded. His mom hugged him, crying in earnest, and Bucky managed to keep himself from crying, too.

 

They sent him to rehab. Bucky got withdrawal a day in and barely lasted the first week. Drying out had him pinballing between crushing depression and rage that made a few of the nurses scared of him. But Steve hated bullies and Bucky would never want to be something that Steve would hate. In the end, he was just depressed. A month in rehab didn’t really make him want to drink less.

 

“You could try therapy?” his mom suggested.

 

Bucky shook his head. “I’m just tired,” he said, quiet and weary.

 

He slept through most of January and February. His dad managed to get him a job at his bank in March and Bucky spent a few months as a teller.

 

July was always tough for him, though. And Bucky couldn’t stomach the grief.

 

He woke up in a hospital again, feeling like he got hit by a truck and with a hangover twice as bad. Becca was there that time.

 

“You were hit by a car,” she said in a shaking voice. “Please tell me you didn’t step in front of it.”

 

Bucky couldn’t answer her. He couldn’t remember.

 

“We’ve done this twice before,” his dad told him in a tremblingly quiet voice. “I thought you were sober.”

 

“Maybe you could not judge me?” Bucky snapped.

 

His dad threw up his hands and walked out. Bucky’s mom kissed his forehead with salty lips and walked out, too.

 

“Are you kicking me out again?” he called after her.

 

But Becca drove him home after the hospital let him go. She didn’t talk to him. He didn’t have anything to say.

 

His mom brought him dinner in his room the next night.

 

“Your dad and I want you to go to Alcoholics Anonymous,” she told him.

 

“Do I have a choice?” Bucky asked.

 

“Between keeping your job and your room and your life or continuing to drink,” his mom said candidly. “Yes.”

 

Bucky shook his head. “Fine.”

 

He went to AA. He saw Clint, Clint got this really excited look on his face, and Bucky walked out. He told his mom that that meeting just wasn’t a good location for him and went to one across town. No one there knew him and Bucky got away without saying a word except, “Hi, [insert name here]” and “Thank you, [insert name here.]”

 

He tried to go back to visit Steve’s grave. He was stopped at the gates and reminded that he’d been banned.

 

“I’m going to AA now,” Bucky tried to beg them.

 

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in,” management insisted.

 

“I just want to see my partner,” Bucky said.

 

They turned him out. Bucky bought a big bag of mints and some whiskey and instead, drank in the park where Steve had first collapsed three years ago. He sat on the bench where he'd left the dog. The mints were for after he finished the bottle and had to get home without letting on that he was drunk.

 

Bucky accidentally knocked over a vase on his way to his room, however. He tried to catch it, failed, and it shattered in a loud crash.

 

As he winced, he heard movement and footsteps. Just Becca came downstairs.

 

“Bucky,” she just sighed.

 

Bucky sank onto the floor. “They won’t let me see Steve,” he mumbled.

 

Becca picked up the pieces of the vase and got rid of them, then pulled him up off the floor and helped him upstairs. She put him in bed, tossed his shoes into his closet, and turned off his lights. Bucky cried into his pillow after she left.

 

He thought she’d tell on him, but his parents didn’t mention it. No one did. Bucky told himself he wouldn’t make it a habit.

 

“I can’t keep lying for you,” Becca hissed a few weeks later, as he snuck in drunk for the tenth time. “You need to stop, Buck!”

 

“I’ll stop,” Bucky promised.

 

Becca didn’t look like she believed him. She sighed and helped him to bed.

 

Bucky kept himself off alcohol for a while. August seemed to go by without trouble. His dad said he was proud of him. Bucky finally said something at AA other than a thank you or a hi. It was just his name, but that had to be something.

 

But then he woke up on September 6th and Steve had been dead for four years and Bucky just couldn’t take it anymore. He blew off AA. He emptied his checking account. Bought as much beer as he could, drank half and then got some Aspirin. Around one in the morning, Bucky jumped the wall at the cemetery.

 

“You’re gonna be pissed at me,” he told Steve. “And I’m sorry, baby, I am –”

 

Bucky’s voice broke. He sniffed hard, wiped his nose, and opened the Aspirin.

 

“If it makes you feel better,” he continued, “‘s not just you. I can’t stay sober like my dad wants.”

 

He washed down the medicine with some more beer. Bucky lay down in the dew-covered grass, stuffing his jacket under his head, and rested his hand on Steve’s headstone.

 

“I’ll see you when I get there, punk,” Bucky said quietly.

 

He shut his eyes. He was way past drunk already, at least. He could just fall asleep. He just fell asleep.

 

Bucky thought he felt something nudging his stomach. He opened his eyes and it was bright out.

 

“Hey,” someone said above him, “you’re squashing my grass.”

 

Bucky sat up and squinted against the light. He blinked a few times, but it didn’t go away.

 

Steve scowled at him. “And you’re right,” he said. “I am pissed.”

 

Bucky’s chin started trembling. He got up and reached out, stopping after a second. Steve took a shaky breath, then threw his arms around Bucky’s neck.

 

“I missed you, jerk,” Steve muttered.

 

Bucky lifted Steve off his feet. “I missed you, punk,” he whispered back.

 

Steve pulled away and grabbed his hands. “Come on,” he said. “My dad and your grandpa are waiting.”

 

Bucky just pulled Steve back into the hug. Steve let him.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Bucky choked out.

 

“I know,” Steve promised. “I know, honey. I know.”

 

Bucky squeezed Steve tight like he couldn't do when Steve had died and held onto the hair Steve hadn't had four years ago. Steve fisted his hands into Bucky's shirt and held on just as tight, even though Bucky probably smelled like a beer factory and he hadn't showered in a while. It didn't seem like Steve cared. 

 

"I loved you," Bucky whispered. "I love you. So much."

 

"I know," Steve answered, his voice cracking. "I love you, too."

 

Bucky let himself cry. Steve covered the back of his head with a hand and kissed his cheek. 

 

"It's okay," he said. "It's over. It's all over."

 

"I said I'd see you," Bucky choked out. "I didn't - I didn't think I would -"

 

"I'm here," Steve promised.

 

"Is this real?" Bucky asked.

 

Steve pulled his head back and kissed him. Bucky could taste the salt and everything that had been Steve once.

 

"We're here," Steve murmured against his lips. "It's real enough."

 

Bucky just nodded. He couldn't not believe. He had to believe. The alternative was too much. 

 

Steve kissed him a second time, then took his hands and pulled him away. "It's time to go," he said. "My dad wants to meet you."

 

"Okay," Bucky agreed.

 

Steve led him away. The grass just didn't stop. Bucky looked once over his shoulder, just once, and he saw down the row of headstones, he was still lying next to Steve's grave. He turned back and doubled his grip on Steve's hand. He didn't look back again.

**Author's Note:**

> _I TOLD YOU IT WAS SAD. tell me you cried here, on[twitter](https://twitter.com/moonythejedi394), or on [tumblr](http://moonythejedi394.tumblr.com/)_


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